below: But maybe not here, even if they are two comfy sofas! Comfy but wet.

Meandering on a day early in November

while the trees were still showing their last hurrah of colour.

This mural is on Roncesvalles is partially obscured but is still a welcome splash of colour and vibrance.

I love the raccoons! Pink raccoons

and blue raccoons on street art that I haven’t seen before.

Crooked lines,

tight spaces,

and old glass. All kinds of alterations.

Peeling paint on diamonds (once red?)

and water drops on leaves (definitely red).

One very pink car. Whiskey for Whiskers.

Uber 5000’s yellow birdies and friends are still on the side of Tommy’s Gift & Variety.

And next door you Coffee and breakfast at Tina’s while your tax returns are prepared.

Semi neighbours

at the edges of gentrification.

Lights over the train tracks

and graffiti beside.

A fine and dandy tractor

and a great idea

She’s gone green but she’s got the blues.

and Ontario’s now orange.

A family outing

below: The building with the giraffe pattern on top, at Bloor and Dundas West, is still there.

below: The murals painted by Wallnoize are still there. They were painted in the spring of 2015 and I posted a lot of photos of them shortly after that.

below: The murals run under the Bloor Street underpass (railway tracks overhead), on both sides of the street.

below: The new MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) is now open on Sterling Road. The renovations to the old Tower Automotive building aren’t totally complete; most of the area is a construction site. But the museum opened earlier this year. Access from the West Toronto Railpath is available.

below: Students enjoying the un-autumn-like weather while the pond is almost empty.

The main exhibit at the Ryerson Image Centre is based on the work of Gordon Parks, specifically his ‘Flavio’ photo essay. Gordon Parks was an African-American, born in Kansas in 1912. He bought his first camera in a pawn shop. In 1948 he began a 23 year career at LIFE magazine where he created many photo essays including ‘Flavio’. In the 1960’s Parks went to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to document the poverty there. He centered the project around a boy, Flavio, and his impoverished family, the Da Silvas. When the photographs and story appeared in ‘LIFE’ magazine in June 1961, it caused quite a stir, especially in Brazil. In return, a Brazilian photographer, Henri Billot , visited the poorer parts of Manhattan to prove that the poverty in the United States was as bad as the poverty in Brazil. The family that Billot concentrated on was the Gonzalez family. There is also some discussion about candid photos vs images that are staged in documentary photography.

As a reaction to the LIFE article, Flavio was brought to the USA for two years to treat his asthma. Money was also raised to relocate the Da Silva family to a new home.

below: Some of the photos by Gordon Parks.

below: Flavio and his brother Mario on the promenade in Rio during their first trip outside the favela. 1961. Favela is Brazilian Portuguese word for slum, or low income area a city (usually on the outskirts). In the 1960s the favelas were populated mostly by migrants from rural areas who couldn’t afford living in the city. These areas didn’t have running water, electricity, or sanitation.

below: Photo by Henri Billot

below: Neighbourhood of the Gonzalez family, Manhattan, 1961, by Henri Billot (my apologies for the reflections).

below: Flavio and his wife Cleuza da Silva in Rio in 1976 when Gordon Parks returned to see how the Da Silva had fared since his earlier visits.

In the student gallery was a small exhibit of the work of Alia Youssef. Her project ‘The Sisters Project’ features portraits of Canadian Muslim women of all ages all with a narrative of their own. Their portraits were on the wall of the gallery but their portraits and stories are on the website (it’s well worth a visit!)

In light of the recent earthquake in Indonesia, the third exhibit at the Ryerson Image Centre seems timely. It is a display of photographs taken in the aftermath of the earthquake in Mexico City on 19th September 1985. At the time it was the strongest earthquake on record. Large portions of the city center and the neighbourhoods next to it were leveled.

below: Just a part of the van. If you’ve been to Kensington you may have seen this van – it’s totally covered with stickers.

below: Churro chairs

below: Morning coffee. Saturday mornings in Kensington begin quietly.

below: Faded and forgotten

below: These poser bunnies are a recent addition to the street art in Kensington

below: Mona Lisa and her fruit basket still look out over Kensington Ave. She still hasn’t eaten that banana. The black and white part of this now iconic mural (with the banana) was painted more than 30 years ago. The rest of the fruit was added after.

below: Looking a little frayed around the edges, like some of us at the end of the hot summer!

below: Not long ago there was only Mary in this window. Jesus is now keeping her company.

This is another “come along with me as I walk” blog. Let me share some of the sights from Thursday’s walk which started at Ossington subway station and sort of followed Davenport south to Queen Street with a few diversions down alleys and side streets.

below: More painting, this time Princess Leia and a strange red man with a latch in his ear.

below: If he’s aiming for the garbage bin, he’s missed.

below: ‘Always fresh bread!’ according to the mural on Nova Era bakery… but maybe you see the edge of the blue and white city of Toronto development notice sign peeking into the picture….

below: … because a 12 storey condo may be moving in. Retail is planned for the lower level but it may the same old same old glass and steel development with excessively high ceilings on the ground floor and zero street appeal. Please prove me wrong!

below: Across the street, is this empty storefront. Two intriguing blackboards remain – the one on the left says Thank You! and leaves you lines to fill in with things you are thankful for. On the right, a “Before I Die” board. What are you thankful for? What would you like to do before you die? The business once here didn’t die, they just moved around the corner to Bloor Street.

below: A bit of local ‘colour’ complete with ‘colourful’ language.

below: This building is on the northeast corner of Bloor and Dovercourt.

below: I haven’t been able to find out anything about Valentinos but I quite like the debonair rider with a rose between his teeth.

below: Vintage photo of the Bloor and Dovercourt intersection. No cars!

below: The red and white building in the postcard above is on the southeast corner of the intersection. It is now home to a Pizza Pizza. Most of it’s large windows have been covered over with large pictures. The streetcar tracks on Bloor are long gone and Davies butcher shop is now a Starbucks.

below: I walked past St. Michael Archangel Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church (on Delaware Ave) and a Portuguese Presbyterian Church (on Dovercourt). Then I came across the Centennial Methodist Church. It was built in 1906 and converted into residences in 2010.

CENTENNIAL METHODIST CHURCH, 1906, This Neo-Gothic inspired church replaced an earlier Centennial Methodist Church built on this site in 1891. Notable design elements include decorative stone trim, three central Tudor-arch windows, and flanking square towers topped with pyramidal steeples. It was renamed Centennial United Church in , after the creation of the United Church of Canada. In 1986, the Nisei congregation of the Toronto Japanese Church joined Centennial United to form Centennial Japanese Church. A residential redevelopment was completed in 2010.

below: A little farther south on Dovercourt I passed this for sale sign. I stopped and took a photo of it because of the words in pink: “Laneway suite potential”. Of course I had to check the lane to see if anyone had built suites back there. Suites, according to the city of Toronto, are rooms built over garages and not stand alone residences.

below: It is a neat and tidy lane but so far with no suites

below: But I did see this mural there.

below: I also noticed that the backyards on both sides of the alley were very deep, wonderfully deep actually, especially for a city house. You could probably sever it in two quite easily.

below: In fact, something like that has happened a bit farther south where someone took one house, renovated it, and added three more residences with additional access from the alley behind. I notice that there are 4 water meters here as well as a gate that possibly provides access to the houses behind.

In case you’re curious, the four houses are all for sale. The house in front is a semi and the asking price is $2,400,000. For that you get 2992 square feet and 4 bedrooms. The others are slightly smaller and slightly less expensive.

below: A rare large vacant lot

below: Norbregas Variety and Grocery.

below: And nearby, a cafe with both Coca-Cola and Pepsi signs

below: The streets around Dovercourt are all very nice with lots of large solid old houses and tall trees – in this case, a chestnut tree.

below: I even spotted some wildlife!

below: Northeast corner of College & Dovercourt

below: Letters embedded in the sidewalk where one of the branches of the Garrison Creek passes underground, just south of College Street. The creek was buried more than a century ago. In the early days, the creek was treated more like an open sewer than a river. As the city developed, the stream was diverted into underground sewers (1880’s) and streets were built above it. By 1920, almost a century ago, the stream was entirely diverted into the sewer system.

below: The age of this car seemed to fit well with the buildings around it.

below: Some of Dr. Spock still remains. He hasn’t been beamed up yet.

below: Part of a mural by elicser in a lane behind Dundas West

below: Looking east along Dundas, from Dovercourt

below: A larger than life Pink Panther painted by Matt Gondek. This is on the northeast corner of Dundas and Dovercourt, close to Skey Lane where his other murals are (see recent blog post on Skey Lane)

below: She can still be found near Queen and Dovercourt (painted by Jarus)

Just before Queen Street West there is an art galley called the David Kaye Gallery.

below: It may be difficult to see, but this cup is displayed in a glass case mounted on the wall. The back part of the cube is a mirror. For $12,500 it can be yours (but my arm is not included!).

below: Both this piece, and the cup above, are part of “Camp Fires: The Queer Baroque of Léopold L. Foulem” and are on display until the 23rd of September.

I am going to end this blog post with a few pictures of some of the graffiti that I saw:

ZimSculpt is the name of the exhibit now on at Edwards Gardens. Placed around the gardens are a large number of stone sculptures by Zimbabwean artists. There are also small pieces on display inside a tent-like structure near the parking lot. All items are for sale along with some baskets and jewellery. Here are some of the sculptures:

below: Giving Advice by Boet Nyariri, carved in springstone

below: (after the garden was watered!), Mother and Son, by Joe Mutasa, carved in springstone.